And for that matter, I don’t really have that much feedback from me in 20 seconds from now, or me 20 seconds ago either. My current remembering self has instantaneous inclinations, some of which are predicated on memories or anticipations, but at no point am I ever really a smearing of multiple time slices of myself. (I am probably a smearing of different quantum branches of myself, though. Until those selves decohere and I incrementally discover which branch that “I” have been on “all along”).
For example, what is the difference between what we would commonly call “me”, and an entity whose conscious experience is the Heaviside function with argument equal to the entire description of my brain state right as I type this question mark? That version of me just started existing, but luckily had molecules and quarks in all the right places to feel and remember everything as if he’s been alive for 26 years and ate tofu for dinner.
Well, in practical terms, the anticipations matter. I expect decisions I make now to affect the state of me-in-twenty-seconds; if I jump off a tall building, for example, I expect me-in-twenty-seconds to be a smear on the pavement, so if I value me-in-twenty-seconds not being a smear on the pavement, that inclines me not to jump off a tall building.
But no such relationship exists between me and me-twenty-seconds-ago; I don’t expect decisions I make to affect the state of that entity.
You are of course correct, though, that my anticipations are facts about my minds and not facts about reality-other-than-my-mind, which might have all kinds of properties that make my anticipations (and recollections, and current perceptions and beliefs) simply false.
Yeah, it was your last paragraph that I was meaning. In a given moment, I don’t value something about me 20 seconds from now. I value the current experience of thoughts that involve simulations about an idealization of me extrapolated in time. The thing I am valuing are immediate thoughts though. Much like altruistic values being rooted in your own immediate value of anticipations. My meat computer will act on observations to induce an anticipation of X in my brain. If I want to anticipate Y then I should do Z to bring about the actions that lead to the anticipation of Y. Once I am at the precise instant that I’m experiencing Y, I’m not valuing Y because my mind is valuing anticipations post-Y.
It is very interesting given things like closed-timelike curves and so on that there is no anticipation of past selves. It would be great to see a write up of why the perceived flow of entropy causes me to only future-value an anticipation like being proud of my former actions or accomplishments. I’m sure that the right level of articulation is evolutionary biology. I don’t see how having visceral cognitive anticipations of the past could be adaptive. But it’s still interesting. And even more interesting to think that there is some most-like-me entity within the subspace of entities that do have past-looking anticipations, probably wondering why people don’t have future-looking anticipations right now (in a Big Universe, anyway)
And for that matter, I don’t really have that much feedback from me in 20 seconds from now, or me 20 seconds ago either. My current remembering self has instantaneous inclinations, some of which are predicated on memories or anticipations, but at no point am I ever really a smearing of multiple time slices of myself. (I am probably a smearing of different quantum branches of myself, though. Until those selves decohere and I incrementally discover which branch that “I” have been on “all along”).
For example, what is the difference between what we would commonly call “me”, and an entity whose conscious experience is the Heaviside function with argument equal to the entire description of my brain state right as I type this question mark? That version of me just started existing, but luckily had molecules and quarks in all the right places to feel and remember everything as if he’s been alive for 26 years and ate tofu for dinner.
Well, in practical terms, the anticipations matter. I expect decisions I make now to affect the state of me-in-twenty-seconds; if I jump off a tall building, for example, I expect me-in-twenty-seconds to be a smear on the pavement, so if I value me-in-twenty-seconds not being a smear on the pavement, that inclines me not to jump off a tall building.
But no such relationship exists between me and me-twenty-seconds-ago; I don’t expect decisions I make to affect the state of that entity.
You are of course correct, though, that my anticipations are facts about my minds and not facts about reality-other-than-my-mind, which might have all kinds of properties that make my anticipations (and recollections, and current perceptions and beliefs) simply false.
Yeah, it was your last paragraph that I was meaning. In a given moment, I don’t value something about me 20 seconds from now. I value the current experience of thoughts that involve simulations about an idealization of me extrapolated in time. The thing I am valuing are immediate thoughts though. Much like altruistic values being rooted in your own immediate value of anticipations. My meat computer will act on observations to induce an anticipation of X in my brain. If I want to anticipate Y then I should do Z to bring about the actions that lead to the anticipation of Y. Once I am at the precise instant that I’m experiencing Y, I’m not valuing Y because my mind is valuing anticipations post-Y.
It is very interesting given things like closed-timelike curves and so on that there is no anticipation of past selves. It would be great to see a write up of why the perceived flow of entropy causes me to only future-value an anticipation like being proud of my former actions or accomplishments. I’m sure that the right level of articulation is evolutionary biology. I don’t see how having visceral cognitive anticipations of the past could be adaptive. But it’s still interesting. And even more interesting to think that there is some most-like-me entity within the subspace of entities that do have past-looking anticipations, probably wondering why people don’t have future-looking anticipations right now (in a Big Universe, anyway)